Did Chiesa save Arne Slot’s job as Liverpool ‘abject’ once again? | OneFootball

Liverpool were rotten once again as they picked up just a point v Sunderland, while Aston Villa are the best team in the land.

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Arne Slot out!

Time to go my bald headed friend! It really does feel like last season Slot just let muscle memory do its job and Gravenberch came into his own. This season we are easy to play through, weak defensively, no pressure in the final third. Remember Mane, Salah and Bobby? Christ on a bike remember Henderson, Milner and Wijnaldum! Pressure, working hard, leaving the opposition constantly uncomfortable. Now a promoted side (a very good promoted side at that) made Anfield feel like the Stadium of Light!

Take Arne out back and get shot. Cowlick

Did Chiesa save Slot’s job?

Slot must be feeling the heat because he subbed off Gakpo who was dreadful, predictable and ineffectual once again. You’d think this statement is obvious but Slot seems to be obsessed with Cody and never subs him. Gakpo is nice to have around when the team is cooking but he makes everything worse with his inability to sustain attacks when the team is poor. This team is abject, to be clear.

A small number of players leave today with credit; Gomez, Jones, Chiesa and Wirtz all looked good and worked hard. It struck me as silly Slot didn’t rotate Isak for Ekitike and Gomez for Ramsay. Maybe also give Rio a start. Klopp and Slot have this idea around winning being a rhythm but I think Slot misses the fact that losing is exhausting mentally and physically and we’ve got our bottoms handed to us an awful lot the past two months. Fresher legs might’ve delivered a better first half. As things stood I spent half time thinking I should switch off and read my book. It’s not even a good book.

Glad to see that after losing 9 of the last 12 Slot still opts for the “abandon all shape or tactics and bring on all the forwards” strategy. Chiesa clearing off the line is a real potential sliding doors moment as it’s hard to imagine Slot surviving had we lost today. Funny how Chiesa can barely get a game but plays for the shirt with all his heart. Wish Slot valued that over whatever he seems to see in Konate and Gakpo to treat them as undroppable this season despite mistake after mistake from the pair.

It’s wild that we could win at Leeds and go fourth; a real reflection of how incredibly low the standard of the league is this season. Monty, LFC

Salah is on weak footing

Liverpool are woeful on set pieces this season, both defending and attacking them. While issues on the defensive end seem complex and multifaceted, I reckon it’s quite straightforward in the offensive situations, namely on corners. We’ve no proper set piece taker(s) following departure of a certain turncoat homegrown product to Spain.

And I couldn’t understand why Salah has been taking corners in his stead until it dawned on me it’s probably because he offers absolutely no threat in the box from an aerial ball. Salah is simply the least likely of any ten outfield players in a side, any side, to score from a corner, full stop. So now he takes them.

The problem is Salah has an extraordinarily weak delivery. It’s definitely not of a whipped variety. Rather, it’s floaty and sits up, arriving in slow-motion all fluffy-like, such that nobody might attack the ball to score. When I think further on this, it also occurs to me Salah has never had a particularly powerful shot either. Peruse his career catalog and you’ll find the great majority of his goals have been close range efforts. He’s had a couple pearlers to be sure, but his strikes from further out have always been of a curled or chipped variety, substantially more finesse than vicious belter.

Salah is undoubtedly a legendary goal-scorer but he’s never exhibited much power. I dare to say he has one of the weakest ever pegs in the big pantheon of legendary forwards in world football. But now that the agility, foot speed, vision, passing, and what little graft he once offered is all on the wane, what happens ? What’s a deposed king to do besides deliver cupcake corners to his half-baked team ? Eric, Los Angeles CA (Szoboszlai makes for a better captain btw. We are rudderless with the Dutchman.)

From title contender to crisis club

Within the space of three days Chelsea was been hyped to be the main title challenger to Arsenal when Liverpool and Man City can’t get their shit together, two precious points ahead of Liverpool which is in the deep crisis mode with effort of a baby step to move out of the wood. Anyhow this company of crisis clubs are getting bigger every week and is very good that the king of crisis clubs will be rotational now when we have many princes. Mudashiru LFC Ibadan (God, can Man Utd shit the bed and share the throne with Chelsea until Weekend)

The real Chelsea have stepped forward

That’s the real Chelsea. Can we finally stop talking about them being anywhere near title contenders because they beat a Barca team there for the taking and getting a point off Arsenal.

Fourth at best. And that’s as high as Maresca and BlueCo will ever take them. Will

Advocating stress-free footie

Been away on an Ashes sojourn for a few weeks now and have seen very little football. Caught a tiny bit of West Ham v Liverpool. More than happy to continue waking up to Villa wins though. It’s far less stressful to just see the result without going through the emotional turmoil of actually watching a game.

Given Villa have the early kick off on Saturday I could actually watch that one, but do I? Should be another easy 3 points. Not even sure who this ‘Arsenal’ lot are. Don’t hear much about them. Gary AVFC, normally in Oxford (As a Gary T on Gili T I surely need a G&T later?)

Aston Villa: Really quite good, you know

“Having already been there for three years, it does feel a little like we are getting towards the end days of Emery at Villa.

“As to what comes next, it feels like Emery is in the B-tier of managers.”

Well well well. How the turn tables. Not my words, Carol; the words of Top Gear magazine. Put six straight wins in your f**king pipe and smoke it.

Anyway, never mind this website’s predilection for Starmery ‘we’ve always been clear that [insert retconned wrong opinion]’, Villa are now parked nicely inside the top 4; so I’m taking the chance to have a good gloat about it before Arsenal, Chelsea and PGMOL FC return us to a place where Sky don’t have to talk about us. Lolz! Of course I’m joking. They’re not talking about us anyway.

Oh no, Villa are scoring goals from long range! This is cheating right? It’s just luck isn’t it? Look, the xG says so. All hail xG. Obviously, lots of teams have seen Villa’s lumpy performances in the last few years against teams who don’t want possession, and have learned to flood the 10 yards in front of goal with players.

And so maybe, as a counter to this, Unai has instructed his team to start shooting from the edge of the box? Players, coaches, the manager himself have all said he has in local papers, local radio, local TV coverage, programme notes, press conferences… but crucially, the 3 minutes of MotD coverage a week that makes up Little England’s knowledge of Aston Villa does not include this information. So who knows? Maybe Emery doesn’t want his players to shoot from range at all, they just keep ignoring him?

And now we come up against a more progressive team who don’t defend like that, we’ve scored 3 tap-ins and a 15-yard blockbuster – ie 4 goals with a cumulative range shorter than Kamara’s winner at the weekend. I assume the xGeeks will be telling the world that because these goals v Brighton were ‘sustainable’, Villa will be scoring 4 every week? Or is xG, in fact, more adjective than verb? Is it useful for describing last week’s game, while being useless for predicting next week’s?

Anyway. A couple of other things: just the 10 assists for Morgan Rogers this year, so far, and a ridiculously good performance again. A shame he isn’t allowed to play for England, because we have to take someone who never plays well for England, someone who never plays at all, and someone who breaks the whole attacking shape over the knee of his main character energy, but there are levels apparently? Sorry if that offends.

And FAO TV companies: we get it. We’re massive; we created the football league; we’ve been the best club in the Midlands since the sport was invented. Obviously, to all the Jake Humphreys in London it might seem that everyone involved in Midlands football would support us. Who wouldn’t? But Robbie Savage (on Villa co-comms last week), Dirty Don Goodman (co-comms on Sunday), Matt Upson (co-comms last night) are very much not connected to Aston Villa. Lee Hendrie may not be back from Turkiye regularly enough to do the work, but at least try and find someone proper? Neil Raines UTFV

I have too much to say but too little time. Now that the heavens have provided a perfect opportunity (yet again) for Man United to sneak back into contention for top 4/5, watch these billion dollar bottle jobs squander it away against relegation fodder. Until and unless this team learns to capitalise on such opportunities (they have never capitalised since Fergie, except the Europa win under Mourinho), managers will come and go.